Times you're glad that you're not a chef on TV

Like this morning where I grab some onion from the fridge (Whenever I need part of an onion for something I’m making, I go ahead and peel the whole thing and cut what I don’t need into thick pieces and put it in a Gladware container) then proceed to grab a dull paring knife and cut it into smaller pieces on the counter, because I’m just making a couple of eggs, and don’t need to drag out a cutting board and a good knife.

Or when I spray the pan I’m cooking in with cooking spray, then decide that it might stick, so I SPRAY the pan again very liberally, and then put butter in it after I put in my ham and onions, and the eggs still stick with a vengeance.

Great thread topic.

There’s this apple tart I’ve made twice. While the finished product is really good, the ingredient amounts and baking times are WAY off. The filling calls for four apples, a cup and a half of cream, one egg, three tablespoons of sugar and cinnamon. It is to be baked for twenty minutes at 375 degrees.

The first time I made it, I could only fit three apples in my tart shell (made from scratch, of course), and about half of the cream mixture in the pan. It took way more than twenty minutes to bake, more like forty. The result was good, but not nearly sweet enough.

The second time I made it–this past weekend–I only used two apples and I still had a little over a half cup of cream mixture left over. I swear I baked that damn tart for like an hour. Since I used more sugar and sprinkled the dough with cinnamon and sugar right before I rolled it out (I used the other half of the dough for a curried chicken pot pie, so I couldn’t add the sugar to the flour mixture in the beginning), it turned out really well. The recipe yields a custard tart with apples suspended in it. It’s really good, but the recipe is really bad.

I’m glad I wasn’t hosting a cooking show because every time I checked the damn tart it wasn’t done. This, of course, lead to much cursing and swearing, both of which are probably frowned upon on cooking shows.

I’m glad the cameras aren’t rolling whenever the “five-second rule” comes into play.

Every time I taste the cooking meal with the stirring spoon to ascertain “tweak” need, I feel guilty. I suppose I should get a clean spoon to taste with, but I don’t bother. No one’s gotten cooties yet.

Nah-you’re adding flavor!

That’s what I tell myself anyway.

We have a five second rule, but you have to beat the dog to the food in that five seconds… which rarely happens.

You also can’t feed the dog at the oven on a tv show.

Well since my wife and I have been putting a new floor and getting our pool ready this past week, I’d say I’m glad no cameras are filming the disasterous nature of the kitchen.

Heh… ever notice how the show Kitchen Accomplished is always teaching the homeowners some fabulous recipe when the kitchen looks like this? It’s like <old kitchen, sad music> cut to “And then stir in the almonds” then cut to <happy music, beautiful kitchen>

:stuck_out_tongue:

Recently I fixed a dish which called for pork to be cut up, dipped in taco seasoning and then cooked in a little bit of oil. While I didn’t exactly burn the pork- I sure did burn the taco seasoning. I ended up with a whole bunch of smoke in my apartment. I was happy I was the only one around. (Although some others to help eat the pork dish would have been nice- It was too bland and tomatoey for my taste- and made a huge amount. Recipe from the paper I’d never tried before- and won’t try again.)

And then there was the day I fixed beef stroganoff with freezer-burned beef. If you didn’t eat the beef- It tasted good. The beef tasted bad. That was embarrassing- though again, the only one around to eat it was me, so it wasn’t the end of the world.

Finally, we have today. Auntie and I bought several tasty chocolaty treats at a local bakery. We went back to Auntie’s apartment. I divided one into four pieces, put one on her plate, and went to put the second on my plate. It fell directly on top of the other treat I was going to cut up. - Could have been worse (it could have fallen on the floor or something made a mess and become inedible) But the chocolate truffle treat was too soft to remove easily.

First time I made hollandaise sauce, I got done with it a bit too early and had to set it aside while finishing the other parts of the meal. So it cooled off, and when I had the rest of the food ready, I unthinkingly put the hollandaise in the microwave for a quick warmer. Of course that caused it to separate into butter and yolky sludge. Doh! I had to return the mess to the double boiler, add a bit of water, and work everything together again, during which the rest of the meal cooled off. Definitely not a TV cook moment.

And you never see Jamie Oliver take a huge chunk out of his thumb with a razor-sharp chef’s knife, either. Or his ring finger. Or his index finger. Or (checks scars) his thumb again…

Cervaise, Bobby Flay took a chunk out of himself on Iron Chef the time they had him teaming with Chef Morimoto. Plus, I’d be willing to bet just about every chef has taken chunks out of themselves chopping at some point or another.

Now, don’t get me started on butter sauces…

Back in my bachelor apartment days, when I was frying up some leftovers, I added a few drops of my beloved Mad Dog hot sauce to the hot frying pan, and the resulting steam was like being maced. I literally had to leave the apartment and wait to get my eyesight back.

On second thought, that would have made great TV.

I guess you mean for this to go the other way… that is, items that are not filmed that you would hate to have been on tv.
I saw the title, and instantly thought of Chef Tony, and his Miracle Blade knives…
“We are gonna have our knives remodel this bathroom here, for no apparent reason… Then we are going to cut a soda can, then a penny, a Tommato, and a sledgehammer.”

A good rule of thumb is never make any recipes out of the newspaper, unless they won the blue ribbon at the state fair. I tried to make a rice pudding recipe out of the newspaper once. The article swore up and down that it would be the creamiest, quickest rice pudding I would ever prepare. I should have thought twice about sacrificing some good Basmati when the recipe said to cook it in the microwave oven. It was chewy on the inside and hard as a rock in the middle and top. I threw it out and spent a good half hour trying to buff the crud away with an SOS pad.

However, I do have the absolute yummiest cookie recipe, and that’s the blue ribbon winner. It’s made from dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries, and walnuts. Divine.

I’m glad no one is around when I make no-bake cookies. They don’t even get cool before they are scarfed up.

Oh, maybe the first time that I tried to make creme anglaise and ended up with a pan of scrambled eggs instead.

Or maybe when I chopped off one of my fingernails while slicing up apples.

Or perhaps when I forgot I was hardboiling eggs. All the water boiled away and the resulting quite firm eggs had little black circles on their shells. (Or perhaps when I did the exact same thing a second time.)

I have a tendency to either have too big of a pot (end up burning things, not sauteeing them in their own juices) or too small of a pot - which ends up meaning i have to wash twice as many pots.

I used to make salads and desserts at a swanky restaurant. I am really good at the “cold side” but when it comes to heating stuff I just suck. I could make a food tv show all about how to cut up melons for a party of 350 tho :slight_smile:

Got that recipe handy, by any chance? That sounds fantastic.

The time I finished up cooking a turkey that had been in the smoker grill for a couple of hours in the oven … but didn’t put any kind of drip pan beneath it, just laid it on the grate. Just like I did in the smoker grill. Worked just fine there. Whats the problem?

Then when the place starts filling up with smoke and the smoke alarm goes off, Mrs. Evil Captor gets all unreasonable. She had much to say about the unwisdom of not putting a drip pan under a turkey when you put it in the oven, and of the thoughtlessness of them who would do so. She has filed it under her collection of Idiot Things Men Do stories. Men being me.

I will email it to you tomorrow.

Actually, there was a certain episode of Emeril Live (and yes, I too am part of the crowd that is mostly over him) that earned him some of my respect…

On one of his shows it seemed like everything went wrong. Something burned, something didn’t cook all the way, the mixer wouldn’t start…and on and on.

Being the big shot tv chef that he is, he could have had had the boo boos edited out. But he didn’t. And he took it all with a sense of humor…all the while reminding the audience that even tv chefs have bad days. It was pretty cool :cool: